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Using the reMarkable, my unsophisticated way

#e-readers

Past

I used to look for a perfectly integrated tech-stack such that I could sync notes, highlights and metadata between my e-reader and my computer, and view the same notes on both devices (I even wanted them to auto-appear as Zotero attachments), and so on.

After some epiphanies, I now only have two simple requirements:

  • To use KOReader
  • To easily write notes using the stylus pen

Why handwritten notes

I know you hate handwritten notes. Me too. I previously thought I only wanted to extract book quotes to my computer, because I keep my whole life in plaintext files. That includes anything book-related. What use did I have for handwritten notes? They're not portable, they're not searchable, they're useless!

If this is your approach, you don't need a reMarkable – get a PocketBook or any other device, root it and slap KOReader on it.

These days KOReader supports direct connection to Calibre over WiFi, and even has its own SSH server (as of 2022-08 only Kobo and Kindle).

But it's a great idea to use the reMarkable pen. In the course of building an org-roam knowledge base, I found that it's hard to make good notes weeks or months after reading something (Slipbox workflow). The learning process went smoother if I had my laptop alongside the tablet, so I could make notes in realtime, in that piping-hot moment when the insights were fresh in my mind (Write when insights hot).

Of course, you must treat handwritten notes as temporary (a big collection of hand-writings is not exactly "scalable" or useful), but in this regard they're the same as book highlights and excerpts! Sönke Ahrens says that book highlights are to be considered "transient notes" (Three kinds of slipbox notes), something you discard after 24-48 hours.

The danger with digital highlights is they are so reliable, so long-lasting, that you may postpone looking at them for months or years, and your learning is destroyed. Here, handwritten notes are effectively the opposite of highlights: not only are you driven to merge them into your knowledge base more quickly — because who wants to keep a stack of uncategorized scribblings — it's fine even if you delay doing so because you already did quite a bit of learning in the process of writing them.

Aside: Instead of stylus, paper and pen could work. Although there is something about writing on the same slate I'm reading, especially in casual environments like the beach or the bus, but YMMV.

How🔗

OK, but KOReader does not support drawing or writing. To use the stylus, you must somehow switch to the reMarkable's default UI called Xochitl. Enter my solution: the remux launcher. With a single gesture, I can switch seamlessly between KOReader and Xochitl.

This is perfection: writing in Xochitl, reading in KOReader, and minimal transition between the two.

How to configure remux launcher this way: 

echo "filter_palm_events=true" >> /home/root/.config/remux/remux.conf
echo "back_gesture=gesture=tap;fingers=2" >> /home/root/.config/remux/remux.conf

(Note: do not use 3+ finger tap, it's a known issue with remux!)

If you prefer to swipe up from bottom of screen: 

echo "back_gesture=gesture=swipe;direction=up;fingers=1;zone=0 0.7 1 1" >> /home/root/.config/remux/remux.conf

When you re-start the reMarkable after a battery drain, you have to launch KOReader again before you can switch between them. Bring forth the launcher by holding down the home button.

What links here

  • 2023-01-31
  • 2022-09-30
  • My reMarkable
Created (2 years ago)

The 2-4-6 game

The 2-4-6 game has two players: one takes the role of Nature and the other takes the role of Researcher.

Nature writes down a rule for a triplet of numbers to match or not.

R asks N about a few triplets one at a time to see if they match or no, such as 1-3-5, 1-2-3 etc, and N answers "Yes, that fits the rule" or "No, that doesn't fit the rule". Then R guesses the rule.

(DON'T READ THE BELOW if you haven't played the 2-4-6 game before)

Trick is that Nature wrote the rule "any integers in increasing order", and R will tend to guess a much more convoluted rule. The game demonstrates how important it is to seek disconfirmations of R's hypothesis (Attempt to falsify), which would narrow down the search-space quickly, but people rarely do. This is "positive bias".

Positive bias (doing only confirming tests) can be regarded as distinct from confirmation bias (trying to preserve the belief you started out with), even though many times when there's positive bias, there's confirmation bias too. This game is an exception: no one would say that R is already trying to "preserve a belief" – R doesn't care about the belief for its own sake yet, so the problem is nothing so sinister, only that she uses a naive methodology.

Q: what should the existence of positive bias lead me to NOT see?

What links here

Created (2 years ago)

Leave a line of retreat

www.greaterwrong.com/posts/3XgYbghWruBMrPTAL/leave-a-line-of-retreat

From Sun Tzu, one translation: "When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard."

Equally applicable for your debate partner and yourself.

For yourself: When there's an unpleasant idea and you're trying to judge whether it's true, you can ask yourself how the world would look if it were true and what you would do then. Now you have an "outlet" – a line of retreat – it's no longer illegal for the unpleasant idea to be true and you can seriously consider it.

In a debate, this Sun Tzu quote also maps to the courtesy of giving your partner a way to avoid feeling embarrassed, and that's part of How to Have Impossible Conversations.

What links here

Created (2 years ago)

Always put numbers in context

In every topic, seek to understand roughly the magnitudes involved.

  • How magnitudes relate: if you know that Russia has 140M people, and that countries rarely field more than 1% of their population as soldiers, you don't need to read the news to be very skeptical if someone claims that Russia is about to field 5M soldiers.
    • Expressed differently: this lets you remember about base rates so as to not fall to base-rate neglect.
  • Enable better Fermi calculations

This may mean making conscious note of statistical data. At least taking the time, as a policy, to find out the important numbers.

For example when people are talking about their car releasing so-and-so tons of CO2, you look up how many tons of CO2 are released per year globally, and how much that is per person.

As a side effect, you may actually remember their car's exhaust magnitude because you've connected it to other info and made it mean something.

With this habit, all kinds of statistical data may start sticking better in your head because you're connecting them more and more.

What links here

Created (2 years ago)
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